A Red Stained Childhood
by IrisCandy
Summary: Teresa Lisbon feels refreshed and - to her surprise - happy. Nothing could put a damper on her day. Or, so she thought. When the CBI gets a new case, the location of the murder brings back some of Agent Lisbon's most painful memories of her past. Can she stay strong for her team or will she finally crack? She'd never expected to talk about her past...least of all with Patrick Jane.
1. Foreshadow

**Author's Note: Hello everyone :) I've recently become quite the Mentalist fanatic, so I decided to write a little Jisbon. This is only the first chapter, a nice quick preview of what's to come. If you like what you see, please review and I will be sure to continue with it. Reviews = Motivation! Thanks :)**

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Teresa Lisbon was in a particularly good mood that sunny October morning, and for no particular reason either. Nothing could have gotten on her nerves, really. Except maybe Patrick Jane, but she wouldn't expect anything less.

She sat in her office, twirling her pen and completely incredulous to the fact that she had absolutely no paperwork to do just then. Several cups of coffees the night before did just the trick. She knew she'd regret it when the caffeine wore off, but she decided not to dwell on that.

She was hoping for one of those rare homicide-free days so she could go home and catch a little sleep, as she was sure Jane did last night if not devouring his Red John files.

His obsession scared her, but it wasn't hard to understand why he was so caught up in the case, obviously. She'd do the same if it were her brothers. She just hated that awful, eerie glint in his eye at the mention of the infamous serial killer. That look promised horrible things to come.

She shook her head, shaking away the thoughts. Why ruin this one moment of peace?

Just as she had that thought, Rigsby came knocking on her door.

"We've got a fresh one, boss," he said, waving a CBI file he held in his hand. Lisbon sighed, but got up from her desk to follow him to the main bureau.

Van Pelt, Cho, Rigsby and Lisbon all gathered around the bulletin board. She looked around to see Jane's curly blonde head peeking up from the couch, one leg rested on his bent knee and carrying an air of strong indifference, as he usual did during new cases. She rolled her eyes slightly. She didn't bother calling him as she knew he'd saunter over when he spotted something he could use to show off his genius mind.

Rigsby went on explaining the new case. A gay couple murdered in their home. Lisbon listened intently, preparing herself for the new case that sounded a lot like a hate crime. Discrimination. Jane would soon make his smart ass remark and -

Lisbon's thoughts stopped dead as Rigsby mentioned the address of the crime scene.

She felt the blood leave her face. No, not there. Please, not there.

She heard the creaking of the couch as Jane got up to give some input on the case. Lisbon paid no attention as her thoughts were reeling.

She hadn't been there since...she didn't want to re-live it...

"Boss?" Van Pelt's voice pulled her from her thoughts.

"Hmm?" Lisbon muttered. She shook herself from her stupor. Showing weakness was not an option and it never would be.

The team looked at her expectantly.

"Right. Van Pelt, check if the couple have a history of hate crime against them. Death threats, blogs, anything like that. Jane and I will go to the crime scene. Cho, Rigsby, make sure Brenda doesn't come crawling to the scene. We don't know for sure if it's hate crime."

There was a chorus of "Yes, Boss," and the team split up while Rigsby muttered something about "media vultures."

Lisbon found it was a little hard to breathe in the little CBI office.

"C'mon," she said to Jane, who was making no effort to hide the fact that he was playing some mentalist game with her right now, and he knew something was wrong.

She did her best to avoid him as they made their way out to the SUV.


	2. Dread

**Author's Note: Thank you to all those who left reviews. You kept me going, and here's another chapter for you! Hope it doesn't disappoint. Oh, and just to make things clear, there most likely will not be any Jisbon romance in this particular story, but there will be loads of Jisbon friendship and comfort. (I don't like to stray far away from the actual relationships between characters.) Enjoy!**

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"You're biting your nails."

Jane hadn't spoken for five minutes until then, and it startled Lisbon.

"Jumpy?"

"Shut up, Jane."

"Well something's bothering you,"

Lisbon stared at the road ahead of her and it took all of her willpower to keep her nails away from her mouth. Jane wore that stupid smile he had when he knew he was right. Lisbon's heart beat faster.

"I'm fine. Too much caffeine last night," she shrugged.

Jane ignored her. "You looked decent until..." he paused, thinking."Something Rigsby said."

"Don't you have anything better to do?" Lisbon asked, irritated.

Jane grinned at her. She took that as a no.

"He mentioned the address, but how would that make you so...?" he trailed off, noticing Lisbon's expression. She felt herself pale in spite of herself. She gripped the steering wheel to stop her hands shaking. She hated feeling so weak, so powerless at the mere mention of a street name.

"Jane, would you give it a rest? Go...comb your hair or something," she waved one of her hands, as if shooing him away.

Surprisingly, he didn't say anything back, but she felt his icy blue eyes on her. She pressed her lips in to a tight line, trying – in vain – to look like a calm and collected CBI woman.

After a while, Jane had to open his mouth once again. "You should talk about it. Bottling it up doesn't help much, I find."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, masking the fear behind her voice. Who was she trying to kid? Of course Jane would know what was bothering her. She'd seen him do it with hundreds of people, and he'd most likely read the bits in her file as well.

"Lisbon, I would have thought that you realized by now that we are friends. Colleagues, yeah, but friends just the same."

Lisbon said nothing to that, but she felt a pleasant tingle down her spine at the words. Out of every person in the CBI, she couldn't deny that she felt closest to Patrick Jane.

"Look, I just want you to know that contrary to popular belief, I can actually hold a conversation without causing injury, insult or resentment."

Lisbon smirked at that. "Yeah, right."

"Ah-ha! So you're admitting that there's something wrong."

Lisbon peeled her eyes from the road to glare at his triumphant face."How do you figure that?"

Jane looked about to make some cocky response, but his face fell. Suddenly, Lisbon saw a look of seriousness and sincerity on his face that she'd never seen before.

"It's your childhood street. The crime scene. That's where you lived, isn't it?"

Teresa felt her heart drop down in to her stomach, and she accidentally swerved off the road, followed by a chorus of honks and screeching cars. The sounds brought her out of her thoughts and she turned the steering wheel sharply, coming to a stop on the side of the road.

"Shit," she whispered, placing her forehead on the steering wheel and taking deep, calming breaths.

She could vaguely hear Jane breathing deep as well. Her stupidity and lack of concentration could have gotten her killed.

_Could've gotten him killed too,_ she scolded herself.

"Lisbon, I think maybe you should"-

"No," she interrupted him firmly. "We're going to the crime scene. This is stupid."

"But"-

"Jane. Enough."

She put the car back in to gear. For once, Jane kept his mouth shut for the rest of the way. Lisbon could practically _feel _the concern running through his head.

She planned on taking her sweet time to reach the destination she so ardently dreaded.

* * *

Rigsby and Cho had just stepped out to get some air when a CBI vehicle pulled in to the small bungalow's driveway.

"Took 'em long enough," said Rigsby as Jane stepped out of the vehicle in his usual grey suit.

Lisbon followed after, though she didn't look right. Anyone could see that she lacked a sort of composure and professionalism that she so often carried. Rigsby decided not to ask, as he knew his boss well enough not to stick his nose in her business.

No matter how small and harmless looking the woman was, Rigsby sure as hell didn't want to piss her off.

"What do we got?" she asked when she reached the three men.

"Blunt force trauma to the head on one of the victims, but the second is different. Looks like a poisoning of some kind," Cho explained.

"Hmm. That's interesting," Jane added with his usual eagerness, though he seemed to be looking at Lisbon peculiarly, like she was a bomb about to explode at any moment.

Their boss seemed to be having some difficulty swallowing.

_They must have fought in the car on the way here_, Rigsby deduced_. Well, that's nothing new. _

"Let's go check it out," said Lisbon, rather reluctantly. Before making her way inside, she shot a glance at the neighboring bungalow and looked instantly peaky.

She seemed to notice the rest of the agents following her gaze. She quickly looked away, stomped past Rigsby and in to the house where the crime scene unfolded.


	3. Breaking Down

The smell was off. That's the first thing she noticed. It was expected, of course, since the scent of a house is created by the people living in it, and Teresa's neighbors haven't lived there for a long while. If she concentrated, she swore she could still smell that omnipresent scent of Italian foods that she loved so dearly as a kid.

She tried not to let her mind wander to the bad details of the moments she spent in that house, but the two men lying dead on the floor in front of her didn't exactly trigger the rainbows and smiles of her childhood.

Teresa stood in the middle of the stuffy living room, staring down at the bodies. One was a small, blonde man - bloody and beaten. The other was slightly bigger, but with no marks on him besides a horrible pallor and glazed eyes. Being a CBI agent, Lisbon never had any problems with gore and corpses, but the sight of them lying on the floor where she used to play with her Barbies? It disturbed her greatly.

She watched as Jane bent down over the bodies, sniffing them and measuring them with his usual curiosity. She felt eyes on her, waiting for her to give her verdict, but she just couldn't.

The anxiety closing in on her throat proved that point.

With a small jolt of her heart, she saw the rickety staircase and her feet started to itch with the longing to go up those stairs once more.

Without a word to the others, she made her way to the staircase and climbed them ever so slowly and quietly. There was only one room that these stairs led too, and she felt that voice in her head screaming "Go back! GO BACK!"

But Agent Lisbon doesn't take orders from a weak subconscious.

There it was; a small brown door – though, Lisbon remembered it to be white – that smelt of fresh paint. She turned the doorknob, not allowing herself to turn back now.

The room was quite different from the way it was all those years ago, but the sight of the closet was all she needed to trigger a flashback that made her knees weaken.

_Little Teresa Lisbon, 15 years old, tears running down her freckled face as she ran down the street from her horrid house. The sun was shining. All Teresa could think was that the sun's presence was completely inappropriate on a day like this. At a house like this._

_"Run, then, you stupid girl!" she heard her father's slurs echoing behind her – the swishing of the ever-so-familiar beer bottle in his hand. _

_Her brothers were away at their friend's house, thank the lord. Though, that didn't do much for her own luck. She felt the throbbing across her face...her arms...wrists...the sting of every slap, every punch..._

_Despite being blinded by the perpetual flow of tears coming from her emerald eyes, she ran faster than the speed of light to the next door house. She didn't knock. She turned the door knob and stumbled in, sobbing, heaving. _

_"HELP ME!" she screamed, louder than she thought possible. Hysterical. Her scream had startled her neighbors, who sat peacefully on their couch, oblivious to all that happens in the neighboring house -Teresa's house._

_Patty Reynolds was the name of the old woman that ran to her aid as Teresa fell to her knees, clutching her chest, unable to breath._

_'Can't breathe,' was all she thought. 'Can't breathe!' _

_"What is it, hunny?" she heard Patty say through the ringing in her ears. She could vaguely remember the woman dragging her to her feet, pulling her up the stairs as her father came banging on the door. She guided Teresa to the closet and said; _

_"It's okay, Teresa. Stay here, Teresa." _

_"Lisbon? It's okay." _

_Lisbon? Patty didn't say that. Patty didn't call her Lisbon..._

"Teresa?" said a voice.

Jane's voice.

Lisbon sat on the bed, staring at the closet, silent tears moving down her face and the same claustrophobic feeling in her lungs...

_Can't breathe._

A horrible jolt of panic went through her body, and suddenly she forgot she was a CBI agent, forgot where she was, forgot who sat right next to her.

She grabbed Jane's arm painfully hard and looked around the room in a panic as she gasped for breath that didn't seem to come. The sobs began and she shook so hard and...

_I'm going to die, _was all she thought. _I'm going to die._

She felt Jane's hand on her shaking arm and he started to speak in that soothing, quiet voice he used on those he hypnotized...

"That's good, Teresa. It's okay. You can breathe its okay..." he whispered, staring at her with those blue eyes and he made all the world melt away with those simple words...

She found she could take one large gulp of air and relief flooded through her. She squeezed her eyes shut and she took in another breath. And another. Another. She opened her eyes and found Jane and he welcomed her with a little smile.

In other circumstances, Lisbon wouldn't have let him see her that way. _No one _should see her that way. But then she remembered that he already had...he'd seen her cry when she was accused of murdering a man. All of a sudden, she found she didn't care anymore. She let herself go, just this once, because Jane had been through so much already and she knew – even if she didn't want to admit it – that he would understand.

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**Author's Note: Next chapter will basically be Teresa talking to Jane in more detail about her childhood, and you will see that they get closer when they can relate a little more. It'll be cute. You'll see! :-) I hope I haven't disappointed so far. Next chappy will be up soon!**


	4. Tears

"I don't know what happened," Teresa said, but it came out as just a whisper.

"Shh. It doesn't matter. Just a panic attack," he said softly. He rubbed her arm. Comforting.

"It's my neighbor's house," she said, feeling like she needed someone to know. She needed someone to listen. "I came here on the bad days when I couldn't handle my Dad. That happened more often than you'd think. That closet...that was one of the worst days. I had to hide in that stupid closet for hours."

"You shouldn't keep it all locked up inside you like that. That's the worst thing for you," he said, staring blankly at the wall in front of him.

Lisbon gave a sad chuckle and wiped the tears that irritated her cheeks. "If you haven't noticed, I don't really like to talk about my problems."

Jane looked at her and smiled. "I've noticed."

The moment quickly passed as her CBI visage came flooding back in to her, and she realized she was working a case. She stood up.

"Crap, we have to go"-

Unexpectedly, Patrick pulled her back down on to the bed and Lisbon furrowed her eyebrows at him, her usual frustration seeping through.

"The people downstairs are perfectly capable of handling it without you," Jane said, not seeming to realize or care that he just man handled his boss.

"Jane"-

"Lisbon. Would you just relax? For five minutes?"

He said it with such conviction that she actually gave in and let her shoulders relax. She let out a sigh.

If anyone knew how she was feeling right now, it was Jane. She wasn't a therapist, but she knew full well that any traumatic experience was likely to cause panic attacks. She was sure that he'd had plenty.

Teresa felt as if a weight had dropped in to her heart and stomach. She could breathe, but not as well as she would like. She couldn't keep out the memories that fled back to her mind with every glance at the room around her, and she knew she would feel ashamed later on, even if she didn't now.

"Don't be ashamed of it," said Jane, reading her mind.

"I'm a CBI agent. I shouldn't be so god damned weak,"

Jane almost seemed to get mad at that statement. "Lisbon, look at me," he said, almost harshly. She did.

"You are not _weak. _In fact, if you were calm and collected when you walked in to this house, I'd be concerned that you weren't even human. You've gotta stop crtisizing yourself with everything you do."

Lisbon opened her mouth to speak, but Jane kept going.

"One day, if you keep letting all these bad feelings stay locked up inside you, you're going to break. You're going to break, just like I did."

Lisbon let her mind wander back to the moment with Jane in her office, when he'd told her about his time in the hospital. She figured taking his advice wouldn't be such a bad idea.

"Okay," she answered, but it came out as a pained whisper. He put his hand on her back as she stared at the closet in front of her.

"_Jane!" _someone called from downstairs. The two looked at each other, and Lisbon made a motion with her head as if to say _go on. _

But Jane shook his head. Lisbon opened her mouth to retort, but he shushed her.

She felt his comforting hand on her back and decided she didn't have the energy to argue.

* * *

Lisbon continued working the case after that. She was stubborn, and she knew that, but working was just in her blood. It kept her mind off things.

She did more paperwork that night.

But, finally, she couldn't hold it off anymore, and when she got home, she cried. She cried harder than she'd had for years and years. She cried for her poor Mom. She cried from memories of Patty. She cried from memories of her house and Patty's closet and her brothers and the beatings...

Teresa lost track of time. She relished the feel of the tears from her eyes. It felt better, just like he said it would.

Once, she even tapped Jane's number in to her phone and let it ring once before clicking it off again. She'd done this several times.

Each time, she hung up. Because she may have been in a tough place, but she was still the same old Lisbon that she always was, and she got through it how she always did - alone.

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**Author's Note: There you have it! I know this probably isn't the happy ending you were all expecting, but I really like to stay close to the characters' personalities, and I think you can all agree that our little Teresa Lisbon would stay strong after something like this. I hope you enjoyed this story, and that it didn't disappoint you. Thank you for all the lovely reviews and favorites. You guys are the best!**


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